Alice aslem
mfa in design
Virginia Commonwealth University
Specialisms: Fine Art / Printmaking / Textiles - Mixed Media
Location: Doha, Qatar
Alice aslem
First Name: Alice
Last Name: aslem
Specialisms: Fine Art / Printmaking / Textiles - Mixed Media
Sectors:
My Location: Doha, Qatar
University / College: Virginia Commonwealth University
Course / Program Title: mfa in design
About
Alice Aslem (b. 1999, Doha, Qatar) is an Indian artist born and raised in Qatar, where she lives and works. Her multidisciplinary practice combines painting, printmaking, weaving, and installation to explore memory through material objects and digital archives. Growing up between analog and digital worlds, she is interested in how memories are preserved and what is passed on through generations. Her recent work transfers digital photographs onto palm leaves from Qatar and screw pine leaves from India, turning digital images into woven, tactile archives. The natural materials introduce texture and change, allowing the images to fragment and reflect how memory is remembered in parts rather than as a complete record. Through weaving and image transfer, she invites viewers to question the idea of endless digital storage and instead experience memory as something organic, physical, and shaped by touch, time, and material.
What happens to a childhood stored behind a password? Between the Veins began while scrolling through photographs of my son on my phone. As the images multiplied, they became an overwhelming digital archive, making me question what kind of memories I am preserving for him. Growing up between analog and digital worlds, the work explores the relationship between material memory and digital storage. My experience growing up in Qatar within an Indian family, and later becoming part of a Pakistani family through marriage, has also shaped my understanding of belonging across cultures and borders. Photographs from my son’s childhood are transferred onto screw-pine leaves from India and Qatari palm, then woven together by hand. The materials carry traces of the places that shape my identity, bringing separate geographies into one tactile form. For my son, the work offers a physical connection to his Indian heritage, which political borders make difficult to access. By giving physical form to an excess of images, Between the Veins makes the weight of over-documentation visible, transforming a digital archive into a tangible and embodied memory.